Before the establishment of the PRC in 1949, China had been represented at the Olympics under the flag of the Republic of China (ROC). However the flag of the PRC was raised for the first time at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics in Finland. The PRC sent a delegation of 40 to attend, but due to transportation issues mainly concerning the lack of an available jet aircraft to fly the team over to Finland in time for the competition, only one of the athletes, the swimmer Wu Chuanyu 吴传玉, arrived in time to take part in his event.

Due to its extended period of social and political upheaval in the second half of the 20th Century, the PRC did not represented at any Summer Olympic Games held between 1956 and 1980 inclusively. The first Olympics attended by the PRC since the Cultural Revolution was the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. It was in this year when the PRC truly opened its Olympic medal account with a total of 32 medals (15 golds, 8 silvers, and 9 bronzes), and earning them fourth place in the medal table. China’s first Olympic gold medalist was the 50m pistol shooter Xu Haifeng 许海峰, who earned this landmark achievement at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.

Coins have been issued by the People’s Bank of China to commemorate the Olympics in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996. However, no coins were issued for the...